5 Steps To Making Your Staff Feel Appreciated

Posted on 6th August 2018 at 15:01

There is little mystery in why we start businesses, we aim to succeed in a financial gain and aim to carry out a professional life that we enjoy and are passionate about. Either way, the faculty of a business is to be “goal driven” but sometimes we can forget what drives our businesses or rather, who drives the business. In such a case we may unknowingly treat our staff like functioning parts to a bigger machine rather than the human beings of which we all are, and members of a team that we appreciate.

“Clients do not come first.

Employees come first.

If you take care of your employees,

They will take care of your clients.”

-Sir Richard Branson

Create a Healthy Environment

It is important to create a positive environment and tackle a negative atmosphere as soon as it arises. There is no getting away from it, working environments will at times become stressful for the business owner, as well as the manager and the staff. There is often a domino effect that moves negative emotions from the top down. If you are a business owner and find that there is a low self-esteem amongst your staff, it is important to question if that actually came from you. Perhaps you put too much pressure on your manager or acted out of context toward them. If so, you can almost guarantee that the same behaviour has been carried out from your manager to your staff. This can become like a bad habit which actually decreases performance levels and staff enthusiasm, which may then cause you to become even more stressed and continue to treat your managers unfairly - repeating the cycle.

Compassion and Understanding

Showing that you are compassionate and understanding expresses that you do not wish to run the working environment through fear. Consider how your staff will feel if they are always fearful, as if they are always on thin ice. This can feel degrading for your employees because ultimately, they are adults who have to support their life and fulfil their responsibilities outside of work. This can be enough pressure as it is and ruling your company with an iron fist will only result in adding further stress to your staff’s daily life. The greatest form of conflict training is actually relinquishing our negative responses to situations and instead approaching them with a level of compassion and understanding. If you understand why someone made a mistake or behaved erratically, it becomes increasingly harder to react in anger, for you will know why they did what they did. This is when you can approach situations with compassion. As a result, employees will respect you tenfold and will feel confident about the inevitable fact that they will at some point make mistakes. This will release tension and pressure and your employees will actually be able to learn and perform to a much higher level.

Make Room For Growth

Create opportunities for your staff’s own personal development. You can match less experienced staff up with those that can tutor them. Give them the skills to become invaluable assets to your business and even expand their careers, regardless if it's for you or another company. You have the power to help people grow and become successful and if your staff experience this from you directly, not only will they become highly skilled and capable, they will likely wish to continue working in your establishment. Quite simply this is because such an approach enables opportunities to move up on the company ladder within a working environment the advocates success and personal development.

Put Your Staff First

It doesn’t matter which way you look at it, your staff run your business. It may be you and your managers that create strategies and business criteria’s but it is your staff who execute them. The sad truth is; it doesn’t matter how poorly you treat your staff as they have needs and responsibilities outside of work, which is funded by their work. But in such a case, you’ll only have staff who show up to get by, who turn up because they need too and will do no more than they have too. When a better opportunity comes along you can guarantee that they will leave and will have absolutely nothing to say about their experience working for such a business. Put your staff first, and they will show up because they want too and do their best every single day because they know you operate a business model which is designed to benefit everyone.

Simple Rewards

Whether you are a big business or not, you should always be able to reward your staff. But the kind of rewards that really go a long way are the most simple. So simple that they are often overlooked. Going up to a staff member and saying that you have recognised their efforts and that you are grateful that he or she is working with you is perhaps the most powerful reward of all. Nobody will ever turn down a pay rise but ultimately, what everyone really wants is something personal, something which shows that you do actually care and that you will do what you can to express your gratitude and “what you can” - “big or small”, will always be received with overwhelming gratitude. Staff will respect you and become even more passionate about their role in the company.

So much of our Mental Health Training and Communications Training is simply bringing forward detrimental behaviour patterns within the working environment. There is nothing more destructive than staff feeling fearful and stressed, undervalued and unappreciated. Your staff will be able to perform to such a higher standard and actually enjoy doing so if you follow these 5 steps on how to make your staff feel appreciated.

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